Bringing the Movie Theater Home
Part 1 of 4 in the Media Entertaiment Space 2021.
One of my greatest movie going experiences was going to see John Wick 3 in a movie theater with people in it without masks in the before times. The reason it’s so memorable to me, is because I was able to book a showing that was christening a new Dolby Atmos system, on a big but not IMAX screen. For those of you who aren’t Wickian Historians, 3 begins with Wick RIPPING through the city in some sort of muscle car, a mustang or something; this is a tech blog not a car blog. The kick off of this movie is one of the loudest theater experiences I’ve ever had. My body was rattled by the sound, the picture was amazingly detailed, and I grinned the entire movie.
The MES of your dreams, or close to your dreams is something that could be within your grasp to give you that moving going experience without the risk of the movie theater. The only people talking during the movie in YOUR MES, is yourself, your family, and friends, and those are all great people to yell at about asking what’s going on in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (absolutely underrated banger of a movie that legit explains NOTHING EVER).
There are some things to consider overall, when putting together a media space. We’ll be detailing what it’ll take to set up a space for where you are now in your life and home (or like us apartments) and how to build for the potential future!
The top things you need to consider before diving in too far is:
Size of space - How big is your room, do you have the ability to drill into walls? How many people would you want to be able to have watch with you?
Privacy of space - Can you rattle your own rafters, or would that make your neighbor upset?
What type of media is most important to you? Movies? Games? Malcolm in the Middle? Anime?
Size is Important
If you’re like us at the DMGT, you may not be a millionaire who has a free standing house, you might be a lowly apartment dweller like us. With that, you might be working with limited space, and it’s worth considering exactly how much power you need to get to the experience you want. It’s our opinion that you may not need a 1000w 7.1 system if you’re working with a spare bedroom sized space. If you’re a lucky person with a basement and a bit more space that may make sense to pursue. What you want to focus on here, is ensuring you purchase components that give you the sound you need for your space, and doesn’t lock you into one version of a sound system. Of course, if convenience is your goal, we’ll be providing the plug and play route of all things throughout this series.
Privacy is Important
Listen, we don’t want to be the reason your neighbors hate you, and one sure fire way to get a neighbor to hate you is to not understand volume levels of things (I’m looking at you college aged stoner people in the next building that only ever listen to thumping music after midnight and only during weekdays). If you’re in an apartment, don’t be a jerk. If you have a freestanding house, blast off! Just make sure you’re a community conscious MES weirdo.
What Type of Media is Most Important?
When considering your MES set up, you’ll want to consider what will be your primary use for your set up, and make sure to fill those primary needs as best you can. While there are TVs/Projectors that are amazing for both gaming and movies/TV, depending on how important one or the other is, you can devote the right amount of money to fully fulfilling one or the other. If both are extremely important to be of the highest quality and latest tech, you may find yourself looking into larger TVs and forgoing the projector journey. If you’re a freak on noticing the small things, make sure to have that conversation with yourself, truthfully.
For us, we like to think most about ensuring our setups are as future proof as possible for gaming/streaming, but also are constantly reminded that we are NOT programers and latency can only give us so much of an edge when our twitch reflexes could NEVER keep up with 14 year olds on Warzone who ruthlessly defeat us in every match we play.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be walking through the major points of creating a Media Entertainment Space. Here’s what we’ll be covering:
Projector or TV?
Audio
Furniture and Accessories
We’ll be providing options across different budget levels, and trying to highlight when something is really great at a certain thing, as well as our overall picks for each part of your MES.
One thing to note, this is NOT based on real life testing, our recommendations will be coming from hundreds of hours of researching, watching tech demonstrations, scouring the internet for specialized websites and reviews, and sifting through the dredges of Best Buy/Amazon reviews to find our way. If you’re really starting to think about building your MES, be sure to call around to local Best Buys, audio/video specialty stores, to see if you can find demos of the tech you’re looking to buy. The best thing you can do is see and hear for yourself before spending you money. If that’s impossible, ensure you’re purchasing from companies that have generous return policies! While returning can be a hassle, and sometimes cost you return shipping money, it’s a small price to pay to get an in-home demo!
